


can't make you stop when you're already gone

by blanchtt



Category: The Simpsons
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 06:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16258538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: She's not quite sure how she got here. After the social worker was assigned, things calmed down quite a bit. The chili eating contests, the impromptu greyhound adoptions, the nights spent awake awaiting boogeymen with baseball bats. They all stopped.So to be present at Bob's execution is a bit of a shock. She hasn't done anything this outlandish in years.





	can't make you stop when you're already gone

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting a fic from late 2013 that I found. Please take with a grain of salt as I've tried not to edit anything. Hopefully this shows some growth as a writer :)
> 
> Based on a sort of Tumblr prompt - what if Sideshow Bob finally kills Bart?

 

 

 

 

 

She's not quite sure how she got here. After the social worker was assigned, things calmed down quite a bit. The chili eating contests, the impromptu greyhound adoptions, the nights spent awake awaiting boogeymen with baseball bats. They all stopped.

 

So to be present at Bob's execution is a bit of a shock. She hasn't done anything this outlandish in years.

 

She shifts in her uncomfortable seat, the stark walls of the hospital-like room a sickly green-white shade in the awful lighting. Her father sits to her right, and the seat is empty to her left. Despite what Bob did to Bart, Marge didn't want to be present. Lisa almost understands.

 

It was her request to be here. Given her age, it took quite a bit of work to ger her in, and the social worker sits behind her, in the empty second row. Because as much as Bart tormented her, intentionally or not, he was, all in all, a good big brother.

 

As a Buddhist, as a vegetarian, as a peace activist - she knows she shouldn't be here. She _knows_ the prisons only perpetrate unjust stereotypes, that the poor and downtrodden end up here, that the yellow man runs the system. She _knows_ this, intellectually. But it doesn't stop her from feeling like something's missing from her life every time she walks past his room and no one's in there throwing darts at the light bulb instead of the dartboard, or banging his head against the wall to see how many times it takes him to pass out, or daring Milhouse to push bitten-off pencil erasers up his nose.

 

It's something you don't get back with peaceful activism.

 

They bring Bob into the room - the one on the other side of the big glass window. Flanked by two guards, surely more competent than Chief Wiggum - who, in a way, she thinks bitterly, also bears a part of this - Bob has no where to hide. In a fluorescent orange jumpsuit, he seems even more thin and gangling than usual, his hair even more wild and frizzled. It doesn't take long for the guards to strong-arm him into the chair, one holding him down and the other buckling the straps. The warden comes in, too, and a doctor. Bob declined a priest.

 

All she can say is that it was satisfying, in an empty, unfulfilling way, to watch.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_Their lives all come crashing to a halt not when Bart goes missing, but when he's found._

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Things don't go back to normal. How could they?

 

Homer drinks more and more - but never lets them see him drunk. It means more time at Moe's, more time out _somewhere_ , and she thinks it's almost the exact opposite of what Marge needs. Because now she clings to her two remaining children with a fierceness Lisa's not sure she'll ever relinquish. They hardly go out anymore - not to Krustyburger, not to the Sprawl Mart, not even to the tire fire with Homer to throw stuff on the flames and document (her work) or comment on (her father's work) which things explode and which things melt and which do something entirely different.

 

Snowball II pays no mind to any of them, as cats do, but Santa's Little Helper sulks by Bart's bedroom door, whining, until Homer kicks him out of anger one day. He changes tactics and whines in Lisa's room instead, where she lets him take up the foot of her bed and pets him when she's not too busy with homework.

 

Maggie is the only one who doesn't seem to notice the difference, and it strikes Lisa hard - like she remembers Francine pushing her, knocking the wind out of her - that she'll grow up with Bart as some far-away family disaster. Not a brother as much as a memory, a memorial.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_The manhunt lasted months, due to the police force's incompetence. But she thanks her lucky stars that they found Bob in the first place. With all the corruption in Springfield, at least there's that to be thankful for - that they found him at all._

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

People avoid mentioning it, like it's some embarrassing accident that has to be kept swept under the rug. She hates it, hates that people don't acknowledge what makes them sad or angry or uncomfortable, and then fix it. Because this isn't something that can be fixed.

 

Milhouse cries in class sometimes, and she sees him on the way to lunch, sitting in the nurse's office. She want to ignore him, to tend to her own wounds in isolation, but can't. He doesn't even try to hit on her - just accepts a pat on the back, a quick hug, a shoulder to cry on.

 

She wonders why she always has to be the strong one.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_It was gruesome - sometimes she questions her parents' decision to let her see the crime scene photos._ _But she never regrets it. She could never have lived her life not knowing, wondering exactly what happened._

 

_She knows, and she'll never forget._

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

As time goes on, the murder fades from memory. The flood of over-baked casseroles from caring neighbors trickles to a stop, except for Flanders, who knows what it feels like. The sermons in church, Marge tells her, slowly revert back to calm, everyday admonishments about charity, grace, kindness. No more eulogies tailored for the Simpson family grief. As she finishes high school and awaits acceptance letter from Ivy League colleges, only rarely does she hear people whisper about that girl with the murdered brother.

 

Time goes on, leaving Bart behind.

 

But it leaves Homer behind too, stuck looking at the bottom of an empty beer can. It leaves Marge behind, clinging to a family that's no longer the same, babying the ones remaining to cope.

 

The only one it doesn't touch is Maggie - she's growing too much to be stopped by something as inconsequential as a ten-year-old horror.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_The funeral is the most somber she's ever attended - no gopher hole mishaps, no T-shirt cannons, no ambitious hot dog vendors._ _It's almost a mockery of everything Bart worked for._

 

_So she makes sure, in Bart's memory, to help Maggie pick up a clump of dirt and let it drop into the collar of Principal Skinner's suit as they all bow their heads in prayer._

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Almost ten years after everything changed, there is good news. An accident, yes, but this time, a good one.

 

They're going to have another sibling - a girl. Not a replacement, but an addition.

 

Homer still drinks, forever mourning, but spends more time around the house, so that Maggie loses only a brother and not a father as well. Marge, resilient as always, was always there for them, but finally seems to smile for the first time. It's sincere, happy, and Lisa realizes how much she missed seeing it.

 

There's so much she's gotten to do that Bart didn't have a chance to. They don't get to complain about college professors or the torture of finding a job in a shitty market or or talk about discovering girls together.  She's sure he would have had a field day with that one.

 

She will find someone, settle down, maybe have kids, and so will Maggie. Marge and Homer, overexcited with the upcoming birth of their own child, ask them constantly about grandchildren, although she's sure they'll stop once the baby's actually born and they realize they don't have the energy of twenty-year-olds anymore.

 

It still hurts, too much to even bear, sometimes. And it's not fair, because nothing, not even Bob's death, brings Bart back.

 

But life goes on.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
